1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a bracket equipped with a paper releaser mechanism for use in the document reader portion of a facsimile machine or the like, and to a document reading apparatus employing such a bracket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a facsimile machine or the like that employs a close-contact-type image sensor as a document reading means, the document reader portion thereof is, for example as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-65446, structured as follows. In the path through which a document P is transported, a back roller and an image sensor portion pressed against it with a spring are provided, so that the image on the document fed in by the back roller is read continuously while the image is kept pressed against the reading surface of the image sensor.
In a document reader portion that employs a pressure-contact-type image sensor like this, when a document jams in the transport path, it remains pinched between the back roller 1 and the image sensor portion. Thus, to remove the document, the back roller and the image sensor portion need to be detached from each other.
For this reason, the back roller and the image sensor portion are so structured as to be detachable from each other so that, when a document needs to be removed, one of the back roller and the image sensor portion is retracted to a detached position. According to the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-65446 mentioned above, at each end of the shaft of the back roller, a release lever with a cam is fitted so that, as the release levers are swung, the cams permit the image sensor portion to move up and down.
However, the conventional paper release mechanism described above (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H8-65446) requires extra parts, namely the release levers fitted on the shaft of the back roller, and thus has disadvantages of increasing the number of parts, complicating the structure, increasing assembly time, and the like.